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  THE SPENSER NOVELS

  Robert B. Parker’s Bye Bye Baby

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Angel Eyes

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Old Black Magic

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Little White Lies

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Kickback

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Silent Night

  (with Helen Brann)

  Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby

  (by Ace Atkins)

  Sixkill

  Painted Ladies

  The Professional

  Rough Weather

  Now & Then

  Hundred-Dollar Baby

  School Days

  Cold Service

  Bad Business

  Back Story

  Widow’s Walk

  Potshot

  Hugger Mugger

  Hush Money

  Sudden Mischief

  Small Vices

  Chance

  Thin Air

  Walking Shadow

  Paper Doll

  Double Deuce

  Pastime

  Stardust

  Playmates

  Crimson Joy

  Pale Kings and Princes

  Taming a Sea-Horse

  A Catskill Eagle

  Valediction

  The Widening Gyre

  Ceremony

  A Savage Place

  Early Autumn

  Looking for Rachel Wallace

  The Judas Goat

  Promised Land

  Mortal Stakes

  God Save the Child

  The Godwulf Manuscript

  THE JESSE STONE NOVELS

  Robert B. Parker’s Stone’s Throw

  (by Mike Lupica)

  Robert B. Parker’s Fool’s Paradise

  (by Mike Lupica)

  Robert B. Parker’s The Bitterest Pill

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Colorblind

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s The Hangman’s Sonnet

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Debt to Pay

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot

  (by Reed Farrel Coleman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Damned If You Do

  (by Michael Brandman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Fool Me Twice

  (by Michael Brandman)

  Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues

  (by Michael Brandman)

  Split Image

  Night and Day

  Stranger in Paradise

  High Profile

  Sea Change

  Stone Cold

  Death in Paradise

  Trouble in Paradise

  Night Passage

  THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

  Robert B. Parker’s Payback

  (by Mike Lupica)

  Robert B. Parker’s Grudge Match

  (by Mike Lupica)

  Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

  (by Mike Lupica)

  Spare Change

  Blue Screen

  Melancholy Baby

  Shrink Rap

  Perish Twice

  Family Honor

  THE COLE/HITCH WESTERNS

  Robert B. Parker’s Buckskin

  (by Robert Knott)

  Robert B. Parker’s Revelation

  (by Robert Knott)

  Robert B. Parker’s Blackjack

  (by Robert Knott)

  Robert B. Parker’s The Bridge

  (by Robert Knott)

  Robert B. Parker’s Bull River

  (by Robert Knott)

  Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse

  (by Robert Knott)

  Blue-Eyed Devil

  Brimstone

  Resolution

  Appaloosa

  ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

  Double Play

  Gunman’s Rhapsody

  All Our Yesterdays

  A Year at the Races

  (with Joan H. Parker)

  Perchance to Dream

  Poodle Springs

  (with Raymond Chandler)

  Love and Glory

  Wilderness

  Three Weeks in Spring

  (with Joan H. Parker)

  Training with Weights

  (with John R. Marsh)

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2022 by The Estate of Robert B. Parker

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Atkins, Ace, author.

  Title: Robert B. Parker’s bye bye baby / Ace Atkins.

  Other titles: Bye bye baby

  Description: New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2022. | Series: A Spenser novel

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021047880 (print) | LCCN 2021047881 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593328514 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593328521 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.

  Classification: LCC PS3551.T49 R622 2022 (print) | LCC PS3551.T49 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021047880

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021047881

  p.   cm.

  Cover design: Lisa Amoroso

  Cover images: (necklace) Tsuneo Yamashita / Photodisc / Getty Images; (broken pearls) Superstock / Alamy Stock Photo; (fuse) AJT / Shutterstock

  Adapted for ebook by Maggie Hunt

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_6.0_138931607_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Robert B. Parker

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map of Spenser’s Boston

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7


  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  For Team Spenser:

  Joan, Mel, Luann & Jim

  Forever Boston pals

  1

  The reelection headquarters for Carolina Garcia-Ramirez was deep in Roxbury at the corner of Proctor and Mass, wedged between an all-night liquor store and a Honduran restaurant that advertised the best pollo frito in Boston.

  That afternoon, I was dressed appropriately for the dog days of summer. A lightweight khaki summer suit, white linen shirt, and polished wingtips sans socks. I caught a glimpse in the office window and thought I might give George Raft a run for his money.

  “May I help you?” the receptionist said.

  Despite my stunning entrance, the woman had yet to look up from her computer screen.

  “Can you vouch for the Honduran place on the corner?” I said. “Is the pollo frito really the best in the city?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Never been there.”

  “Seems worth investigating.”

  “Soul food joint down on Blue Hill’s much better,” she said. “If you’re into that kind of thing.”

  The woman was of a plus size, with long black cornrows and large brown eyes. I smiled, offering half-wattage so as not to distract her from her duties. She had on a white silk top with blue polka dots, a nifty little bow at the neck.

  She hadn’t smiled since I walked in the door. Women usually swoon or fall onto the floor with convulsions when I appear.

  “Are you here to see someone?” the woman said. “Or just strolling around asking random-ass questions?”

  “Might as well do both,” I said. “The congresswoman is expecting me.”

  “The congresswoman isn’t here,” she said. “Is there something else I can help you with?”

  “My name is Spenser,” I said. “Kyle Rosen arranged a meeting.”

  “Spenser?” she said. “Is that your first name or last?”

  “Last.”

  She asked me my first name and I told her. The woman stopped clicking the keyboard and picked up the phone, speaking so quietly I could barely understand what was being said. After a few moments, she nodded and pointed out a group of vinyl chairs that looked to have been swiped from a Ramada Inn lobby.

  “Gonna be a minute.”

  I took a seat by a large plate-glass window. The chair’s split seams had been repaired with silver duct tape.

  As I waited, a staff of a dozen or so milled about secondhand desks and wobbly chairs. The paneled wood walls brightened with posters of Congresswoman Carolina Garcia-Ramirez looking as bold and confident as Che Guevara. change, now, and for the people written in block lettering. It sounded like most of the staff was cold-calling potential voters about next month’s primary.

  One exasperated young man kept repeating the congresswoman’s name before finally relaying the sad news: Tip O’Neill had died long ago.

  Fifteen minutes later, I spotted Kyle Rosen through the plate-glass window. We had never actually met, but I’d seen his picture and read his profile in The Globe.

  I watched him crawl from a black SUV and hold the door open for another passenger. I stood as Carolina Garcia-Ramirez stepped out, dressed in a black pantsuit, hair in a tight bun, with a phone firmly clamped on her ear. She was tall, black, and striking. Even if you didn’t know who she was, she looked like somebody.

  Another man, small and thin, with hair bleached nearly as white as Tedy Sapp’s, followed from the front passenger seat, carrying a very large leather bag. He struggled to get ahead and open the door.

  I looked to the receptionist. She smiled and nodded in their direction.

  “Mr. Spenser,” Rosen said. “I’m sorry we’re late. The flight from D.C. was delayed twice.”

  Rosen was a young guy, late twenties or early thirties, with wild, frizzy brown hair and black-framed glasses that hadn’t been hip since Buddy Holly died. He was medium height and skinny, wearing jeans and an oversized black T-shirt that said be the change.

  I followed Rosen into a private conference room filled with floor-to-ceiling boxes and large stacks of posters. A long oval table was cluttered with coffee cups and fast-food containers, a few legal notepads and office supplies. A sign on the wall read i’m not your mother, kids. please clean up your damn mess.

  “Thank you for coming,” Rosen said.

  “Any friend of Rita’s.”

  “I met Miss Fiore at a fund-raiser last month,” he said. “What a dynamite lady. She told me there’s no one better at what you do.”

  “Besides having a pair of million-dollar legs, she also happens to have a top-notch legal mind.”

  The mention of Rita’s legs caused Kyle to flush. Although tough and sexy as hell, she was probably the same age as his mother.

  “Please excuse our offices,” he said. “When you have a reelection every two years, no one wants to sign a long-term lease.”

  “I once had an office in the Combat Zone.”

  “Really?” he said. “I’ve heard stories.”

  “Grown men still weep recalling the Teddy Bare Lounge.”

  Carolina Garcia-Ramirez walked into the room and stopped cold before tucking her cell back into her purse. When Rosen introduced me, she seemed a bit confused.

  “I thought we covered this,” she said.

  Rosen held up a hand to ask her to let him speak. He got as far as opening his mouth.

  “I do not want, nor do I need, a bodyguard.”

  “Carolina.”

  “Damn it, Kyle,” she said. “I’m exhausted. Our schedule is backed up for the rest of the week. And I don’t have the time.”

  Rosen took in a long breath and seemed to be seeking a moment of Zen. He offered me a reassuring smile as he himself appeared to be slightly less assured.

  I smiled back. Good ole friendly Spenser.

  “Mr. Spenser does a lot more than just security.”

  “I’m also a song-and-dance man,” I said. “May I serenade you with a bit of ‘Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered’?”

  The congresswoman offered a sour expression. “No,” she said. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  The congresswoman was tall and athletic, with light coppery skin, a delicate bone structure, and a longish neck. She was what many would call pretty if it were not offensive to judge a lawmaker solely based on her appearance. Her black pantsuit was stylish an
d neat, an American flag pin on the collar. She wore gold jewelry subtle enough that even Susan Silverman would approve. The toes of her pumps pointed enough to strike fear in cockroaches everywhere.

  “I really think you need to hear us out,” Kyle said.

  “I’ve heard all of you and I said no.”

  “Well,” I said, shrugging. “It’s been a delight.”

  “Carolina, please,” Rosen said. “If you’re going to win this thing, you need to focus on the damn issues and quit having to look over your shoulder every five minutes.”

  “How am I supposed to explain personal security to my donors?” she said. “That’s an extravagance we can’t afford right now.”

  “We will work it out,” he said.

  “And, damn it, it makes me look weak,” she said.

  Rosen wrapped his arms tight around his body and screwed up his mouth to show it was tightly shut. He looked to me and then to Carolina. I looked back and forth to both of them. I felt like a kid standing between feuding parents. I leaned against the wall and felt into my suit pocket for a silver coin to flip. George Raft would’ve brought a coin.

  “I don’t make sales pitches,” I said. “But perhaps you might tell me a little more about the issue at hand?”

  “Can you help a country deeply divided by sexism, homophobia, and systemic racism?” Carolina said.

  “It’s all on the business card.”

  “I hire someone that looks like you and I look like I’m running scared.”

  “And what exactly do I look like?”

  “Like a leg-breaker from Southie.”

  “If it helps, I live in Charlestown with my German shorthaired pointer, Pearl,” I said. “Sometimes I reside in Cambridge with my significant other. Usually the weekends.”

  Carolina leaned in to the table, the conference room hushed and quiet. She seemed unfazed by the mess as she took a sip from a stainless-steel water bottle.

  “I’ve had haters on me since I announced my candidacy,” she said. “They more than doubled when I got enough signatures to be on the ballot and went off the charts when we actually won. I’ve been called a wetback, a nigger, a dyke bitch, a whore, and a communist. What I’m saying is that I don’t care. I don’t worry about the threats, because this bitch is too damn busy getting work done.”